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March 19, 2001
Essential Services Bulletin
Straight time while on-call during essential services must be grieved
In a meeting held March 14th, Irene Holden of the LRB, agreed with the unions and stated that employers should not be asking union reps to sign off on payment for on-call as part of essential service level negotiations.
Employers had argued that it would be okay, on a without prejudice basis, for local agreements to be signed agreeing that workers on call would be paid at straight time. This contradicts collective agreement language and the unions argued strongly against it. Grievances must be launched if pay rates for on-call during job action do not follow PCA provisions.
Change to BCNU policy re strike headquarters
Because of the difficulty setting up strike headquarters in certain worksites, PJAC has agreed that essential service levels can be signed off in special cases, prior to strike headquarters being determined. (Policy 3.1(10) in job action manual) If agreement on strike headquarters location cannot be reached LROs will refer this to mediators on an individual basis.
Format of global orders
Despite the employers’ attempt to include detailed information not required under the global orders, Irene Holden kept the format the same as in previous years, which includes a short introduction to the worksites and the agreed to numbers.
Process after March 19th
After the March 19th deadline for conclusion of local negotiations, mediators will be assigned to try to resolve outstanding issues. If this process fails, the parties will move quickly to adjudication. Several mediators have already been assigned.
Essential service status report as of March 16, 2001
| Total number of employers not providing plans |
15 |
| Total still being negotiated |
211 |
| Essential service plans completed |
194 |
| Estimate of unreported |
29 |
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